Who is the Expert?
A few days ago, listening to a Clubhouse meeting about becoming a professional speaker isolated an aspect worthy of consideration. It is, what makes an ‘expert’? You may wonder how being an expert can help your life. Well, the answer is found in word influence. How you influence people affects every aspect of your life. Wisdom and knowledge are used to help people make up their minds every day. However, an understanding of a subject needs only be superficially explained in a straightforward way to have an impact. A little information goes a long way.
I contributed the talk:
‘The difference between a good or bad expert is the ability to present their known information in the clearest and most impactful way. A genius with years of knowledge could be a poor speaker or present information badly. Someone who had researched the same subject for a month and is a brilliant presenter could easily be seen as the superior expert’.
Let’s be clear. We all have access to the ultimate encyclopaedia ‘The Internet’. You have more accessible volumes of knowledge connected via your phone than the Vatican library. You can learn to arrange a bunch of flowers or cook an unusual brunch after tapping the screen. Hang in, let me try it: ‘Learn Flower Arranging’ within ten seconds. I had courses and ‘how to’s’ available. Search ‘Brunch Recipes’ ah! Good Housekeeping online gives me 60 brunch recipe ideas in less than ten seconds. A good speaker could cherry-pick the best of either subject, and with a few hours, practice easily becomes an ‘expert’. Beware the expert.
You’ll be going to a real expert at some stage in life. Doctor, dentist, optician. You wouldn’t want to trust the internet when it comes to your health, would you? And yet: many people do trust the internet and ‘experts’ without a second thought. Indeed, we have politicians and world leaders talking about subjects’ with apparent expertise every day. (I and not writing about any specific topic) we know the accuracy of the statement. Our lives are controlled by superficial and bias.
Who Do You Trust?
I’m hoping you are questioning where this article is going. So, here is the consideration:
How much does the expertise of any subject affect your life? Visit the doctor, and he makes a diagnosis: you receive a prescription or a referral: the process of medical treatment is beyond your control. You either trust or not. A similar situation overrules money. You have an expendable income. How it is spent is your choice: some are good at controlling finances others are a failure. All the expertise in the world is available, and the option is to follow or ignore it.
The moon is not made of cheese, and man did go to the moon. If vapour trails are chemical poison, pilots are murdering their children. Taxes are converted into bombs and bullets, which murder the innocent. And there will be experts arguing over the ideas forever. Why enter the dialogue? Common sense should guide you to the reality.
Crazy?
If a doctor said ‘this drug will make you feel great: although the following symptoms are certain. In the morning, you’ll have a killer headache, be sick and depressed, with regular consumption you’ll be an addict, and it will kill you’ You’d probably decline the prescription. However, millions of people swallow gallons of alcohol each night and expect a hangover. No prescription needed.
Poison or Friend?
My opinion is not inferring we should neglect a deep and caring attitude to the horrors of war, climate change, poverty and the rest of civilisation’s plights. To know and to see and to accept the horrors as truth is the way of responsible people. Hiding from reality is a common way of degrading inner-strength. I knew someone who became so entrenched in the starvation of African children, she became ill, and to my mind, she was a helpless reflection of the children who infiltrated her existence. Another became a doctor to work in Africa, helping starving and sick children. Consider the two women with care because one chooses to become a reflection of the tragedy: the other work to help those within the nightmare.
Do not neglect the most critical project, the one aspect of expertise too often overlooked. A lifelong is study should be one’s health, life and existence. Why waste years becoming a shallow expert of a subject. For examples, virus, pollution, bombs, bullets and poverty: why wake up one morning and think, ‘Where has my life gone? What have I done with the life-hours?’ Years wasted becoming expert in subjects on which we have no control.
When listening to an expert, why not ask:
‘How does this affect my life?’
‘How will my life change if I accept this information?’
‘Do I need a more expert solutions?’
Everyone is troubled and affected by the present crisis (Covid 2020-21). People wake up every day with the first thought, ‘God, when will this end?’ You become acclimatised to the present level of fear and the ‘experts’ recycle and adapt the news to spin another web of horror. It is a cycle that is breaking millions of people. Indeed you may be at your wit’s end as you read this article.
Stauration Point:
Any situation which is difficult or tragic comes to a saturation point. It is likened to a sponge. No matter how many times you put the sponge in the bowl, it cannot hold any more water. If one considers the present situation as saturated, and no matter how much more expert information is added, we continue to be at a social standstill. They have saturated the sponge. No matter how much information is poured into the vessel of fear it is overflowing. We can take no more…
Refocus attention away from the saturated sponge, leaving it in the bowl of expertise is an excellent consideration. Stop for a minute and think when an expert’s vision or ideas controlled your life: How did following the suggestion effect your life? And when you choose to ignore the information and move on? Think about this with care, because everyone has a breaking point, where we no longer care. Where we choose to move on. When we say ‘I no longer care, I have look after my position’. Anyone who is a divorcee, bankrupt, mentally broken or is suicidal, understands the breaking point.
We do not have to be influenced by ‘experts’ concepts. The information, accurate or no, is bombarded into every social media stream: whether one chooses to become impacted or not, it is there and taking effect. And the sponge is soaked with mind drowning facts, figures and expertise. Can the information affect your life to a greater degree? Only you can make that decision.
Many consider the present moment is ending. And this is a thought of great hope and inspiration. And those who are progressive and future thinking are now focused on their immediate environment and prepare their lives for the future, looking after their physical and mental wellbeing. They have the lens focused on home, family and work. They are choosing to become the best expert in their lives.
Ian Timothy
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